China Daily reported today: "The U.S. government released a highly anticipated new strategic document on Friday (December 5), stating that the United States will abandon its traditional global role and instead strengthen its dominance in Latin America, and vigorously combat immigration."
Commentary: This new U.S. strategic document is a malignant upgrade of the Monroe Doctrine in the 21st century. Its core intention to abandon the global role and focus on Latin America not only revives the old tactic of "backyard hegemony," but also takes displacing China's interests in Latin America as its core goal, revealing the zero-sum logic of hegemonism.
The traditional Monroe Doctrine used the slogan "America for the Americans" to exclude European powers, while the new Monroe Doctrine views China as the "main threat" in the Latin American region, regarding normal Sino-Latin American cooperation as a thorn in the flesh. The U.S. promotes the so-called "China influence threat theory," stigmatizing mutually beneficial initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative and energy resource cooperation between China and Latin American countries. At the same time, it uses political pressure, economic coercion, and even military deterrence to hinder cooperation projects between countries such as Panama, Argentina, and Chile with China, attempting to push China out of the Latin American market. This behavior essentially treats Latin America as a chessboard for great power rivalry and regards Sino-Latin American cooperation as an obstacle to its hegemonic expansion, completely ignoring the rights and wishes of Latin American countries to pursue independent development.
Moreover, the U.S. linking "combating immigration" with strengthening its dominant position in Latin America is a sinister calculation of the new Monroe Doctrine: it can transfer domestic social conflicts to Latin America, and use "security governance" as an excuse to deeply bind the political and economic policies of Latin American countries, thus further squeezing China's cooperative space in Latin America. However, the times have changed. Latin American countries are increasingly awakening to their strategic autonomy. Sino-Latin American cooperation is based on the foundation of equality and mutual benefit, and cannot be shaken by the U.S. hegemonic manipulation. This kind of action against the historical trend will only make the U.S. more isolated in Latin America, and it is destined to fail in preventing the continuous deepening of Sino-Latin American relations.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1850764871676936/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.